THE BATTLE TO PREVENT THE DEATH OF NET NEUTRALITY

August 27, 2018 post

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for the below brief but informative article on the issue of net neutrality and California’s effort to provide protection from exclusionary practices by Internet Service Providers. These protections, instituted by the Obama Federal Communications Commission, were removed by the Trump Federal Communications Commission in June.

The two bills in the California state legislature up for a vote this week are being closely monitored by other states and governing bodies to see what effect they may have on future regulation to provide net neutrality on a national basis.

Please take the time to read the entire article. California residents, let your Assemblymen and State Senators know that you support the unimpeded access to the internet provided in the two bills.

Note that the industry has poured huge contributions to kill the bills. The last thing Verizon and other providers want is regulations that may inhibit their bottom line profit.

LA Times 8-27-2018

Will State’s Internet Rules Go Viral? State’s Net Neutrality Fight Heats up

Net neutrality backers push for two bills that may be gold standard for other states. Tech firms aim to kill them.

By Jazmine Ulloa

SACRAMENTO — When federal regulators voted late last year to roll back net neutrality protections, state Democratic leaders pledged to wage a fight with the Trump administration to preserve fair and open access to the internet in California.

Now two bills facing final approval in the Assembly and Senate this week have become a proxy battle in the larger national fight to reshape the internet.

The ambitious proposals would establish the strongest net neutrality rules in the nation, safeguards that advocates say would be stronger than those rejected by the White House. One would prevent internet service providers from blocking or slowing down websites and video streams or charging websites fees for faster speeds. The other would deny public contracts to companies that fail to follow the new state regulations.

Calls in support of the legislation intensified last week after reports that Santa Clara County firefighters were hindered by inadequate internet service as they helped battle the massive Mendocino Complex fire in July. (See August 23, 2018 article and comment below)

But pushing the bills through to passage hasn’t been as easy as proponents had hoped in a state controlled by Democrats with a distaste for Trump administration policies. Over the last year, a powerful tech industry has sunk millions into killing the state’s net neutrality efforts, while supporters have responded in kind with aggressive public advocacy campaigns.

“Everyone is waiting to see what happens with this bill,” Evan Greer of the tech advocacy nonprofit Fight for the Future said of the proposal to bar internet service providers from slowing access or charging fees for faster speeds. “If California can’t pass net neutrality protections, opponents will use it as fodder to kill any net neutrality efforts at the federal level moving forward.… If the bill passes, it would create the gold standard for other states to follow suit.”

Net neutrality has been the most closely watched telecom issue taken up by the Federal Communications Commission over the last decade. The most recent set of rules were implemented in a February 2015 order under the Obama administration. They barred broadband and wireless companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from selling faster delivery of some data, slowing speeds for certain content or favoring selected websites over others.

But the federal agency voted to reverse the regulations last year, with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who was appointed by President Trump, and Republicans calling for an end to the utility-like oversight of internet service providers. The vote and the official repeal of the rules in June sparked protests across the state and nationwide.

Net neutrality has since become a rallying issue for Democrats to stir young voters in House races across the country, though opposition to the rollback of the rules has remained overwhelmingly bipartisan. A March survey of 997 registered voters by the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland found 82% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats were against the move.

With that national conversation as a backdrop, California is one of 29 states that have since considered net neutrality protections in the last year. Governors in six states — including Hawaii, New York and Montana — have signed executive orders to reinstate some form of net neutrality. Three states — Oregon, Vermont and Washington — passed legislation to ensure such protections for government agencies and consumers.

State Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) are working together to establish rules that go beyond those adopted under the Obama administration. Wiener’s Senate Bill 822 would, in effect, reestablish the Obama-era rules. Senate Bill 460 by De León bars companies that violate them from receiving public dollars.

But SB 822 also would place new limits on zero-rated data plans, or package deals that allow companies such as Verizon or Comcast to exempt some calls, texts or other content from counting against a customer’s data plan.

Unlimited phone plans that give customers “free nights and weekends” would be permitted. Data plans that exempt the same type of content from some companies over others — video streamed on YouTube but not Hulu, for example — would not.

The bill also would prohibit broadband companies from evading net neutrality rules not only as data travels through their networks but also as it enters them. That would prevent internet service providers from slowing down content from websites that refuse to pay for delivering the data to their customers.

Neither issue was fully addressed in the 2015 federal net neutrality order , which allowed the FCC to further study zero-rated data plans and internet traffic exchange practices “without adopting prescriptive rules.”

But proponents — including former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who was appointed by President Obama, and smaller to mid-level broadband companies — argue the state legislation mostly mirrors the 2015 order in language and approach, tasking the state attorney general with evaluating potential violations on a case-by-case basis. Former FCC officials say the new limits on zero-rated data plans are based on policy analysis that the federal agency undertook in 2016.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers paint a grim picture of the internet without net neutrality rules. They say providers would be able to sell bundled packages with only select sports, entertainment and shopping sites for consumers, or slow readers’ access to news sites that refuse to pay more for faster service. Start-ups would suffer.

SB 822 would ensure “that we all get to decide for ourselves where we go on the internet, as opposed to having internet service providers tell us where we are allowed to go,” Wiener said.

High-profile court cases have underscored their concerns. From 2013 until the 2015 order, six major internet service providers were accused of slowing down content from companies that refused to pay for access to their customers. Troubles with Netflix made the most headlines as customers experienced delays watching movies and TV shows.

Many more companies felt the effect, said Stanford Law School professor Barbara van Schewick, who has studied the issue for more than a decade.

“Employees couldn’t connect to their company’s network,” she said. “Schools couldn’t upload their payload data. Skype calls dropped.”

But major telecom companies and broadband service providers contend the legislation reaches far beyond the scope of the rolled-back federal regulations. Tech industry lobbyists say the rules could lead to costly litigation against the state and would create a patchwork of state and federal laws governing the internet.

“There are a bunch of folks that didn’t get what they wanted in the 2015 order and are trying to get it here in California,” Steve Carlson, general counsel for the Computing Technology Industry Assn., said at a recent committee hearing.

Bill Devine, a Sacramento lobbyist for AT&T, has suggested Wiener’s bill would hurt tech innovation and last week called it “a radical departure from historical internet policy.”

“We believe this bill is anti-competitive and anti-consumer, and is surely going to be challenged,” he said.

The debate in California has drawn national attention. When the Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee tried to scale back SB 822 in June, it retreated amid backlash from net neutrality proponents. The committee’s chairman, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), faced a barrage of tweets condemning the move, and his committee’s vote was captured in a video that went viral. Some took family photos from Santiago’s social media profiles and used them to create critical memes.

Fight for the Future raised more than $15,000 through a crowdfunding site and Reddit campaigns to put a billboard in Santiago’s district urging him to restore the bill. On Friday, Santiago said the committee had always intended to keep working on the legislation, and called claims that members tried to rewrite it at the behest of the tech industry false.

“At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding,” said Santiago, who has signed on as a coauthor of both bills. “We put together the strongest net neutrality bill in the country. The tech industry opposed it then, it opposes it now — and they will continue to oppose it. But I feel good about our chances.”

The bills passed out of his committee last week, hours after Verizon was reported to have slowed the speed of the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s wireless data transmission. The revelation was detailed in an addendum to a federal lawsuit filed by states including California to challenge the repeal of net neutrality rules.

Verizon general counsel Heidi Barsuglia called it a customer service mistake and said the company was investigating the incident.

“This particular situation has nothing to do with net neutrality,” she told lawmakers. “Net neutrality addresses content discrimination. This was content neutral.”

But Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) wondered what could happen to consumers without protections if even firefighters could face difficulty accessing the internet while “protecting our people and saving lives.”

Wiener said that at the very least it was evidence of “how critical internet access is to everything.”

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

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August 25, 2018 Comment

Verizon has reacted as anticipated to a situation that caused peril to life and limb by “fixing the problem” that should not have even existed. Limiting emergency services vital infrastructure, such as unfettered internet access, at the expense of public safety is unpardonable.

It is abundantly clear that the communications industry cannot regulate itself. Considering critical internet access to emergency services without the specter of a disaster should be evidence enough of the need for net neutrality on  a federal basis.

LA Times 8-25-2018

Verizon won’t slow data of first responders Data slowdown affected firefighting efforts

The practice affected the battle against the Mendocino Complex blaze, firefighters say.

By Hannah Fry

Verizon Wireless on Friday said it will immediately stop imposing data speed restrictions on first responders throughout the West Coast and Hawaii after facing intense criticism for reducing service to firefighters battling California’s largest-ever wildfire.

The telecommunication giant also said it will move forward in the coming weeks on a plan that will feature unlimited data without restrictions for public safety officials.

The announcement comes in a summer of epic fires in California and as Hawaii is grappling with torrential rainfall, flooding and power outages stemming from Hurricane Lane .

Verizon’s plan, which was discussed among Assembly members during a committee meeting Friday, was made public on the heels of revelations that the company slowed the speed of Santa Clara County firefighters’ data as they helped battle the massive Mendocino Complex fire in July.

The incident grabbed headlines and sparked outrage this week when Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden chronicled the incident in an addendum to a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules.

“This was not a fire drill,” Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) said during the Natural Disaster Response, Recovery, and Rebuilding committee meeting Friday. “I think we were all surprised that such an incident could occur. I’m grateful that Verizon has recognized they need to change the way they do business.”

Dave Hickey, Verizon vice president of business and government sales, told lawmakers that the company would roll out a new $37.99 service plan for public safety personnel that will feature unlimited data with no caps and will automatically give them priority access on congested networks.

The company also will remove throttling — which he referred to as speed-capping — for emergency responders during future natural disasters that may occur nationwide, Hickey said.

Verizon officials said this week that Santa Clara County Fire Department’s plan featured unlimited high-speed wireless data, but data speeds were reduced when the agency reached a specific threshold, as is customary on their service plans.

However, the company has a practice to remove data speed restrictions for emergency responders — regardless of the plan they have chosen — in emergency situations. Verizon called the situation a “customer support mistake” and has apologized.

“In supporting first responders in the Mendocino fire, we didn’t live up to our own promise of service and performance excellence when our process failed some first responders on the line, battling a massive California wildfire,” Mike Maiorana, Verizon senior vice president of public sector, said in a statement. “For that, we are truly sorry. And we’re making every effort to ensure that it never happens again.”

Bowden wrote in the addendum to the lawsuit that the data-slowing during the Mendocino Complex fire specifically hampered OES 5262, a department command vehicle that acts as a mobile emergency operations center and requires “near-real-time information exchange” to coordinate resources and staff during emergencies like large wildfires.

“Dated or stale information regarding the availability or need for resources can slow response times and render them far less effective,” Bowden wrote. “Resources could be deployed to the wrong fire, the wrong part of the fire, or fail to be deployed at all. Even small delays in response translate into devastating effects, including loss of property, and, in some cases, loss of life.”

Fire crews that worked in the command vehicle faced email delays and challenges updating web-based documents with critical information about deployment because of the data-slowing, which impeded their ability to communicate with one another, fire officials said.

Assemblywoman Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) said she’s eager to hear how other internet service providers plan to tackle this issue, opening the door for further discussions.

Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) was concise in her request. “I’m not going to point fingers, but I don’t want this to happen again,” she said.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

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August 23, 2018 Comment:
The actions of the current administration that negated internet access protections, initiated by the Obama administration to protect the citizens interest, are neither trivial nor inconsequential. The risk to life and limb presented by the throttling of internet availability to critical services in such a cataclysmic local event is immeasurable. Though Verizon called this a “Customer Support Mistake” the lack of regulation addressing net neutrality that depends on industry policing itself has cost immeasurably in this situation.

If national net neutrality can’t be reinstated, it is incumbent on our legislative bodies to provide for unfettered internet access to emergency services agencies that protect property, life and limb.

California residents, support Senate Bill 822 which reinstates net neutrality similar to the Obama administration neutrality rules to assure that this situation is not repeated in future, disasters in the state.

LA Times 8-23-2018

Fire agency felt the squeeze as Verizon slowed its data speeds A ‘customer support mistake’

A VERIZON representative says it should have lifted the restriction and “will fix any issues going forward.” (Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times)

By Hannah Fryda

A crew of firefighters from Silicon Valley had arrived in Lake County to help battle the largest blaze in California history when suddenly their mobile internet service slowed to a crawl.

Officials coordinating the firefighting effort inside the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s command vehicle faced email delays and challenges updating web-based documents with critical information about deployment, Capt. Bill Murphy said.

They quickly learned that their provider, Verizon Wireless, had throttled down the department’s connection to 1/200 or less than previous speeds because the agency had exceeded its data plan limit.

“It essentially rendered those very routine communications almost useless or completely ineffective,” Murphy said. “They were essentially dealing with dial-up type speeds.”

A Verizon representative told them the only way they could make the service faster immediately was to upgrade their plan at a higher cost. So, they did, and service improved.

The breakdown occurred several weeks ago during the massive Mendocino Complex fire, which has destroyed more than 150 homes and killed one firefighter. But the incident only become public this week, sparking widespread outrage both from fire officials and the public.

Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden chronicled the incident in an addendum to a federal lawsuit filed Monday by 21 states — including California — and the District of Columbia seeking to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules.

The repeal, which went into effect in June, scrapped Obama-era rules that prevented internet service providers from blocking content they didn’t like or charging content providers more for speeding up delivery of certain material.

Verizon spokeswoman Heidi Flato wrote in a statement Wednesday that the situation with the Santa Clara County Fire Department was a “customer support mistake” and “has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court.”

“This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost,” she wrote. “Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle.”

However, Flato wrote that the company has a practice to remove data speed restrictions for emergency responders — regardless of the plan chosen — in emergency situations.

“In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us,” she said. “We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward.”

Murphy said officials felt compelled to join in the lawsuit in hopes of ensuring that reduced data speeds won’t affect the public’s access to information such as evacuation routes and fire maps disseminated online during emergencies.

The necessity of prompt communication during disasters was highlighted during the 2017 wine country fires in Northern California; officials have debated whether more could have been done to give residents earlier warnings before the fires swept in, killing 44 people.

For the firefighters battling the Mendocino Complex, Bowden wrote that data-slowing affected a department command vehicle that acts as a mobile emergency operations center. The van requires “near-real-time information exchange” to coordinate resources during emergencies, he wrote.

“Dated or stale information regarding the availability or need for resources can slow response times and render them far less effective,” he wrote. “Resources could be deployed to the wrong fire, the wrong part of the fire, or fail to be deployed at all. Even small delays in response translate into devastating effects, including loss of property, and, in some cases, loss of life.”

The Santa Clara County department now uses FirstNet, a service that provides wireless network service to public safety agencies, as a supplement to Verizon to avoid future issues, Murphy said.

Emails between fire officials and Verizon representatives filed in court show that the department has been having issues with data throttling since December 2017. Fire crews noticed the problem again in June, as they fought the Pawnee fire, which burned 15,185 acres in Lake County. During that fire, Verizon suggested a $2-a-month upgrade to the department’s plan to restore data speeds.

Data speeds continued to be an issue as Santa Clara County firefighters deployed to the Mendocino Complex fire, which began July 27 and had charred 410,482 acres in Mendocino, Lake, Colusa and Glenn counties as of Wednesday.

“Please work with us,” a fire official wrote to Verizon on July 30. “All we need is a plan that does not offer throttling or caps of any kind.”

In response, Verizon suggested the department upgrade to a $99.99 per month plan, which would have more than doubled its bill, to remove the data throttling. Before the department subscribed to the new plan, county fire personnel used other agencies’ internet service and their personal devices to deploy fire resources, Bowden wrote.

“In light of our experience, county fire believes it is likely that Verizon will continue to use the exigent nature of public safety emergencies and catastrophic events to coerce public agencies into higher cost plans, ultimately paying significantly more for mission critical service, even if that means risking harm to public safety during negotiations,” he wrote.

Katharine Trendacosta, a policy analyst with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the department’s experience “is an example of why actions like this are so dangerous and why we need to pay attention to how we’re getting our internet.”

Concerns over the incident were raised Wednesday by members of the Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee, which advanced legislation to reinstate net neutrality protections in California. If it receives full legislative approval, Senate Bill 822 would bar internet service providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down websites and video.

Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) said he was troubled by what happened to the Santa Clara County firefighters.

“If it is happening to them … [while] doing their job and protecting our people and saving lives, I am having a problem with that,” said Rodriguez.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jasmine Ulloa in Sacramento contributed to this report.

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 December 14, 2017 Comment:

The FCC passed the death knell for unfettered access to the Internet by passing the modification to the net neutrality legislation passed under the last administration. Enjoy another adventure into financial exploitation by a critical infrastructure industry.

You won’t really appreciate the effect of this new FCC ruling until you notice that your internet access seems to be slowing down and you hear from your provider that you were notified that you had to “upgrade” your connection at an additional cost. When you notice that you can’t stream the services you pay for (think Netflix, Amazon, etc.) unless you pay a provider “premium fee” to be able to use the streaming services you subscribe to today.

There is no universe where the deregulation of a critical infrastructure service like Internet Access will not be exploited by those who provide it. This move again affects those who can least afford to pay for services that have become the foundation of our daily lives. Medical Services, social services, Financial services and simple communications are increasingly dependent on reliable and cheap inernet access for the masses. As the service availability for internet access diminishes for the less fortunate, remember that this day as the day the current administration accommodated unfettered exploitation of the masses for corporate profit.

Another win for the rich guys.
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November 24, 2017 Comment:

 The below linked editorial by a member of the FCC regarding net neutrality briefly explains the impact of the pending vote by the FCC. It is important for everyone who uses the internet to understand that their access is being sorely threatened by the action proposed that will affect the Internet providers ability to limit your access to the internet. Get the word out that the gutting of the current regulations will allow providers to charge as much as they wish and control unfettered access to the Internet.

LA Times 11-24-2017